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"…we store information differently, reading a science fiction story, to make it make sense."
- Samuel R. Delany
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| High Kavalaan Aircar | ||
| Flying SUV equipped with laser weapons. |
I'm really tickled by this one, since it neatly reveals the form and intent of the modern-day sport utility vehicle. This aircar could eat Hummers for lunch.
| He had seen a lot of types of aircars in his travels, but none quite like this one; huge and steel-gray, with curved and muscled triangular wings, it looked almost alive, like a great aerial manta ray fashioned in metal. A small cockpit with four seats was set between the wings, and beneath the wingtips he glimpsed ominous rods.
He looked at Gwen and pointed. "Are those lasers?" ...Gwen laughed. "Get in," she told him. "It is a perfectly fine aircar of High Kavalaan manufacture. They've only recently started turning out their own. It's supposed to look like an animal, the black banshee. A flying predator... very big in their folklore, sort of a totem... Every car built on High Kavalaan has weapons of some sort. The culture demands it..." She threw on the gravity grid suddelnly, touched the stick an dthe aircar wrenched forward and left the ground... |
| Technovelgy from Dying of the Light,
by George RR Martin. Published by Baen in 1977 Additional resources -
|
Compare to air-car from A Matter of Size (1934) by Harry Bates.
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'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
